NEWARK - A deal is pending on the Longaberger basket building, according to legislation passed at Newark City Council Monday night.

The resolution passed Monday gives Newark Service Director David Rhodes the authority to release all or a portion of money owed to the city, such as water or sewer bills, in an effort to push along the sale of the building.

"We're working as hard as we can to get a sale in place for the basket and to get as much money for the city as we can," Rhodes said Tuesday afternoon.

The potential buyer has not been publicly announced.

This is being done as the property moves through the foreclosure process and will soon be scheduled for a sheriff's sale.

The property would then be auctioned at a sheriff's sale, where the minimum bid is the delinquent taxes owed at the time. The amount due by July 19 was $810,098, according to Licking County Treasurer Olivia Parkinson in July. Longaberger has not paid property taxes since November 2014.

If the property goes through two sheriff's sales and no one has purchased it, it would go to the auditor's forfeited land list. Then the basket building would face an auditor's auction, which does not have a minimum bid, something the city and the county are trying to avoid, Rhodes said.

If the property goes to an auditor's sale, the city and the county could lose out on the total amount owed by the company.

According to the legislation passed at Monday's Newark City Council meeting, the deal is essential to finalizing a sale of the property to a third party buyer who plans to make improvements to the property "as part of an on-going, tax-paying business venture."

The legislation was passed Monday, the same day it was brought before council, because according to the legislation, the sale is pending and cannot be completed until the lien is released and "further delay may result in a nullification of the sale."

Longaberger vacated its seven-story, 180,000-square-foot headquarters in July 2016. The building, which cost $32 million to build, has been empty since.

The company plans to relocate offices, retail and manufacturing to Dresden in the coming months.